


You Could Never Be A God

by commonspacenerd



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: (though i havent done any research and maybe someone has already done this lol), Alternate Universe, Plot Twists, Psychological Trauma, Short, and the setting in that show is a good basis, but alas, but i cant get this idea out of my head, im gonna try to keep this short as i do have more productive things to do, this show just wont leave me alone and i need to put the concept i came up with in writing, yeah so i dont rly like bbc sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-24 07:36:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17096528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commonspacenerd/pseuds/commonspacenerd
Summary: John Watson had never been one to step in the spotlight, but meeting Sherlock Holmes had him doubting his usual boundaries and considering that maybe, just maybe, he could allow himself to receive some more attention than usual. But good things never last, do they?





	You Could Never Be A God

**Author's Note:**

> I'm afraid you won't be enjoying this.

/Checkpoint 1: Approach With Caution/

My story began as many others do - someone desperately needed an affordable flat in London and someone else needed a flatmate who would tolerate their odd lifestyle. Through common acquaintances the pair met and so started their co-habitance, which seemed to work absolutely fine for a solid few years. They would go solve crimes together, as the first of the aforementioned someones was a retired army doctor with a lot of skill, and the latter just happened to be a talented (and kind of annoying) detective on speaking terms with the London police. This lifestyle had its ups and downs but still I found myself enjoying it - even so much that I completely forgot about the life I was, according to all logical sense, supposed to lead. Quiet days filled with some regular housework, watching the telly and trying to bring up my many children alongside my loving wife in a happy home. That was a distant dream that I had locked away in the back of my mind for many years, only to remember it now, when all things in my life have come to a definite conclusion.  
I say definite because there are no more options for me. I'm never going to have the things I now so desperately long for, as my life is nearing its end and all I am allowed in my final days is to fulfill one last wish. And when I say wish, I don't mean it in the sense that I'm terminally ill and the lovely nurses in the hospital delicately asked me what I would like to spend my remaining time doing. No, it wasn't at all an act of mercy, but rather an act of pity. Even so, I simply asked for a chance to write down my story. I'm certain it will never be published, or, if for some strange reason it will, only as fiction in some bizarre and cautionary tale that would never be taken seriously. But for me it is real and it's scary and I don't ever want anyone to feel like I do right now - stabbed in the back in the most horrifying way by the person I once thought to be my best friend.

/Checkpoint 2: Do Not Let It Touch You/

You already know where my story began, and it's too early to tell you how it ends, so let me explain what started the process that will soon result in my death. I would write down a link for the blog I kept going for all these years, but it has been deleted and as far as my knowledge of this situation goes, it will never be recovered. My memory tends to fail me on the details, but as far as I can recall and am able to piece these situations together with the information I discovered later, my downfall began with the very first case we solved - A Study In Pink. That was about four years ago, when all seemed to go so well, when my life had started to have some colour in it again after returning from Afghanistan, I was thriving and enjoying life thoroughly. But as we know now, it was a false sense of comfort that surrounded me. I'm not going to go into detail with the cases we worked on, as they were all as real as crimes can be and I don't find the details to be relevant to what was going on behind the scenes, but it is good to keep in mind that the time we spent at crime scenes was a time when I was most malleable.  
And the phrase 'behind the scenes' is really the absurdly correct one to use here, as I was only a puppet in a play. For the many years I thought I spent living and working in London alongside Sherlock Holmes, an equal to the great detective, I was actually being carefully observed, tested and analysed. And I never suspected a thing because my days were filled with numerous activities and I never really had a moment where I could just sit down for more than five minutes and spend my time in true mindlessness, where my thoughts could wander and bring me to suprising thoughts and revelations. So I kept following the detective along, like some sort of loyal dog, usually more in the role of a pet than an assistant, but nevertheless always content with my task. I saw some horribly mutilated bodies, some chilling murders and some really brilliant detective work. All that got my mind away from the war I'd been in and the traumatic experiences I'd been through during my time away. Though now, taking all things in consideration, I'm absolutely certain that I would prefer a bullet in my shoulder.

I can't say I never had the sensation that I was being watched, or that something wasn't right, of course I had those moments, but I figured that it was normal in the line of work we were in. Especially after we started having encounters with Moriarty, who turned out to be the mastermind behind the majority of cases we had worked on. Or so I had thought, as it later turned out I was completely in the wrong with the theories I had thought to be watertight, and I'll admit it, I had even considered my conclusions to be a bit clever. Everything I had thought to be so normal and regular in my life had actually been carefully orchestrated to lead me where I am now, a broken man stripped of all that had ever mattered to me and made me human. I can't really even call myself a man anymore, what I am shares more resemblance with a trembling shadow in a dimly lit alley than a regular human being.

/Checkpoint 3: Welcome To The Struggle/

It was already too late to fix anything when I first felt that some things were not as they should have been. I was too comfortably settled in my own rotting grave, obliviously wondering about the simple things in life. And the people burying me were the ones anyone would least expect. Now, I admit I've been avoiding getting to the point of my story, but I ask you to bear with me, as I myself am still coming to terms with my situation. Yes, I've accepted that my death is now inevitable, but you must agree with me when I say that I could never be happy about it. I'm writing this in complete isolation from the world and the only people I've interacted with in the past few months are completely insane. I don't use that word lightly, as they are the people who did this to me, they are the people who watched and controlled my life as if I was some kind of player in their twisted and disgusting game of pretending to be gods.  
And I went right along with it, like an empty-headed fool. I went along with all the little games, the manipulations and the pretense. And I called it home. I called it a good life. I often even imagined it to be the best life one could ever wish for. I had a girlfriend at the time, who I thought to be my soulmate. She really was perfect for me. Too perfect, as I now realize. It all pieced together so well, I had a job I enjoyed, a nice home, some friends, a best friend, even. So when it all came crumbling down I didn't just realize it, I felt it. I felt it in my core, in the very center of my conscience, in the air around me. Suddenly, the horrifying realization of my cursedness gnawed out my insides and had a feast on the clouds that had faded my vision beforehand. Never before had I felt anything this intensely and yet not at all. This is something that just doesn't happen to people, it's really only ever described in stories, and even there it seems a bit distant and absurd.  
And just before it happened, I had imagined myself to be one of them. I had been carrying a secret desire to be as clever and powerful as them and I did not care for the thoughts of the others, the judgmental standbyers, as they didn't know them as I did. They had it all upside down and I was the only one close enough to really see what they were like. I was a blind fool. A sheep hoping to one day become a powerful dragon who could steal treasures and trick simple men. But I could never be that and it was stupid of me to try.  
And as you may begin to realize  
my efforts to breathe fire ended in my demise.

/Checkpoint 4: He's On First Name Basis With The Devil/

The one and only time I had actually tried to go where I did not belong was the time that resulted in the first sinking feeling that I was on the wrong path. I had finished working on a case alongside Sherlock and just as I had published the blog post I then did not know was going to be my last, the spotlight fell on me. Not Sherlock or even the London police, but me. You see, by deliberate choice of words (a fact which I would later deny and argue that it was never intentional) I had written myself as the hero of the story. Even though I had played a far more important role in the mystery solving than I usually did, I must confess that Sherlock was still the one who really figured everything out. I was just too courageous, I wanted to try on a hat that did not suit my social standing and by painting myself as the guy who isn't just the sidekick, I started to sense an ever so gentle caress on my cheek. I let it consume me and I never noticed what was really happening. I never noticed that the sweet and caring nymphs were feeding me honey-glazed lies.

I recall Sherlock looking at me one evening, but it was in a sort of distracted manner that one might use to stare at his science project from afar, with a sense of pride, but at the same time wondering if everything is correct and fearing that something is missing. I didn't think of it as much and I figured that he was just not used to me being in the public eye and that perhaps he was worried about how I was handling it. Which in some form way may have even been true, but not in the way you would want it to be. It was not him being a concerned friend, who, in spite of his often analytical and cold image, had discovered a soft spot for his friend, but it was him being what most people feared him to be. A fraud.  
The very next day, when I had already forgotten the worries of last night, was when I finally realized I'd flown too close to the sun. By midday I had received some alarming calls in which Mycroft informed me that I was not safe anymore. I got instructions to go into hiding for a while and the whole setup seemed trustworthy, so after discussing things with Sherlock, I decided to follow them. And in doing so I kept walking the same path of a foolish sheep that I'd walked for years now. Except this time, my familiar path was ever so slightly altered. I did not notice at first, but when the person waiting for me in the safe house had locked the door behind me, I suddenly lifted my eyes from the ground and saw the gaping abyss in front me. And in the bottom of the deep dark pit I saw the lie I had been living.

/Checkpoint 5: The Serpents Do Not Sleep/

To deviate from the comparisons would mean to finally let myself bend under the unforgiving force of reality, and that is something I am not ready for. So you must forgive the abundance of carefully chosen words and metaphors that I use to bring my story to you.  
Ever since the beginning I have made it clear that there was more than one puppeteer pulling on my strings, making me dance in any way they wanted me to. The first was a friend I used to love so dearly, the second a villain I used to pity. The whole time we were on our crazy and thrilling adventures, I had been manipulated into doing what was necessary for me to reach the final stage. The crimes we tried to solve and the events in my personal life were often tailored just so I would gain something from being in the process of solving them or living through them, to develop in some way or to be traumatized in another. And while one puppetteer was keeping a close eye on me, the other was only a few steps away, setting the stage.  
Until now I had thought both of them to be the complete opposites in nature, but it turned out they were really the same. They shared a common vision and over many years of thought and planning they had put together the most elaborate scheme to see their vision come to life. In the process they had nearly melted into a hybrid of some sort, one could hardly function without the other but for the sake of their creation, they managed to play their roles perfectly. Sherlock and Jim, Jim and Sherlock, snakes so vicious they could make you quiver by glancing at you. And the sinful combination of the two resulted in something undescribable, something so inhuman and evil that it would make the Devil bow his head in their presence.  
And right there, in the centre of their grand plan, they had placed me.

/Checkpoint 6: Mechanisms Of Flesh And Blood/

Their plan was never to treat me as a simple lab rat, no, I was much more than that. Rodents were something they found entertaining in childhood, but as time progressed, their desires grew. I was a sort of culmination, if you will. A grand finale that would prove their genius. They didn't even have the typical megalomania of a villain and along with that discovery disappeared my hope that the world would see their madness and bring them down. No one would know what they'd done except for the sinners themselves. Even Mycroft was just a pawn in this game, but since he had always proven more valuable than other people, he had been kept close and used whenever necessary.  
And I was the main course of their meal, the one they would play with before I would be eaten. The gullible lamb waiting for the world to make him a dragon. The perfect target for a plan which had a sole purpose to prove the ignorance of an ordinary man. And the plan worked so perfectly that I never even noticed I was being prepared for the sacrifice. I was being shown what man could be, the heights to which intelligence could rise and the depths which ate those who failed. And I fell from the sky, having touched the dream I thought I longed for, I fell and I enjoyed it.  
Until I hit the ground.

**Author's Note:**

> You were warned.


End file.
